I’m hoping that you know what remarketing is… If not, here’s a quick video explanation:
What is Remarketing?
Here is a MUCH more intense remarketing explanation, or see this graphic for the brief overview:
OK, so in short:
What It Does
Remarketing lets you show ads to users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse the web.
When you use remarketing, you’ll tag pages of your site that correspond to certain categories you want to promote. For example, you could add a “TV” tag on all of the pages where you sell televisions. You can then create an AdWords campaign to show highly relevant messages (such as ads displaying a special offer on TVs) to people who’ve visted these pages as they browse sites across the Google Display Network.
Why You’d Use It
Remarketing is a powerful way to stay engaged with your target audience. Presenting them with highly relevant ads and offers across the web — and making sure your brand is top of mind when they’re ready to buy –- can radically improve ROI. You can achieve even higher conversions by combining other targeting methods, such as interest categories, demographics, or keyword campaigns. For example, if you wanted to expand the reach of your fashion brand, you could target only women between the ages of 18-24 who have not yet visited your site, and present them with an offer that is tailored to them.
Sounds GREAT right?
Like getting 100% of people who go to your website to opt into your e-mail list so you can market to them again and again and again!
BUT
There’s a problem.
Big companies with HUGE wads of dumb cash to spend on branding are using remarketing faster than a politician lies.
Y’see most big dumb companies set their remarketing tags to unlimited views.
“So what Neil” I hear you say (I hear voices a lot).
Well, 2 things:
1. It is VERY annoying when you’re online to keep seeing the same ad for the same thing you did not want on a website 20 clicks ago.
Most digital marketing agencies assume that you went to a site and it just wasn’t the right time to buy for you, which is true of course. But as well being true that what you saw wasn’t right for you, you didn’t WANT to buy, and therefore, showing you ads again and again for something you didn’t want to buy is just dumb.
2. Setting your remarketing tags to unlimited views means that if you have the budget you can pretty much dominate what ads a prospect sees on the net.
Think about that.
Most companies have no idea how to market online and most digital marketing agencies get paid based on how much money they can spend for their clients (usually 15% of the budget), so, the more they spend they more they get paid!
Smart right 😉
So now, as a smart, savvy marketer, you’re using the display network to market your business online; you’re doing everything right, setting good bids and tracking spend.
BUT
Your ads are not working. In fact, they’re NEVER being shown to your prospects because big budget companies are using remarketing (badly) to ensure their ad is the only ad that gets seen.
It’s a land grab for cookies. The business that gets their cookie onto the prospect’s computer wins!
Thus the big get bigger and the small get smaller.
Or to put it another way…
Your display ads won’t work because big business is using up all the online ad space by showing remarketing ads to people.
Sucks right?
As always though, if you’re smart you can win.
How to fight it:
First up, recognise that when someone comes to your webpage to check out your offer, if you’ve done your work right they’re there because they’re ready to buy.
It’s therefore safe to assume that what you showed them did NOT convince them to buy the first time, so showing it to them again 50 times a day will not convince them to buy either.
So try showing them something else.
Pay more (know your LTV)
If you know your numbers you can beat the big companies easily. You’ll know exactly how much to bid and how much you can pay to acquire a customer.
Most digital marketing agencies want this figure as FAR away as possible from their clients. We, however, want to work this out first so we can beat it and acquire customers for our clients as cheaply as possible.
Our incentive is to save our clients money, not spend it for them.
Finally, consider doing direct media buys
I’ll cover this in more detail in future posts, but essentially, you’ll go direct to a website owner and pay them to run your ads on their site, cutting out the middle man (Google) and saving yourself a ton of cash in the process.
Their are other more advanced strategies that we use for our clients of course, so if you’d like us to look after your online marketing for you and have all our secrets applied to your business, get in touch here.
Neil